The Golden Apple of Shangri-La (2 page)

*   *   *

Rowena Fanshawe was just six years old when she learned how men lie, always lie. Her father was a 'stat pilot, and it was from him that she inherited her love of flying, of rising above the earthbound world shackled to its mores and traditions and constraints, of feeling so unfettered and free. Even before she could read, she would look at the pictures in a book about Jean-Pierre Blanchard, who astounded London in 1782 by fitting a hand-powered propeller to a balloon and crossing the English Channel on an amazing flying machine equipped with flapping wings for propulsion, and a bird-like tail for steerage. Within a few short years the astonishment at Blanchard's flight turned into a race to transform his invention into a workable, mass-produced flying machine. The age of the airship had dawned.

Almost a century after Blanchard's epoch-changing flight, when Rowena Fanshawe was very young, her father came to her—he and her mother had separated some time before, a scandal from which she never truly recovered—and told her he was going on a long journey and might not see her for some time. It was a secret journey, but he confided in her it was to somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and he would bring her back a present. What would she like?

"A monkey!" she had said delightedly.

For long months she waited for him to return with her monkey. One pale morning there was a knock at the door. But it was not her father. It was a dour-faced man in black, come to tell her mother that Rowena's father had lied.

He was lost somewhere in the far reaches of the world. He was presumed dead.

He wasn't ever coming back.

*   *   *

“No,” said Rowena. “Absolutely not.”

Morning had brought bright, clear skies; the storm had passed over, leaving the community around the Tashi Lhunpo monastery blanketed with blinding white snow, the
Skylady 's
small gondola almost buried.

“But it is the only way,” said Reed. “Von Karloff has several days' march on us, and if we were to trek through the mountains ourselves we would never reach Shangri-La in time to stop whatever nefarious plans he has. Besides, the route is deadly and almost impassable in parts.”

“You don't understand me,” said Rowena patiently and slowly, as though speaking to a child. “I agree that the most expedient way would be to travel by the
Skylady
. But the air is too thin and cold; we simply wouldn't have the lift to get anywhere near over those mountains. We only just made it to Tashi Lhunpo. Do I need to bore you with the mechanics of dirigibles?”

“No,” said Reed.

“Good,” said Rowena. “Because I really don't want to have to calculate how big a balloon would be required to get us up that high. It would probably be bigger than the damned monastery. And unless Jamyang is going to knit us a balloon that big from yak hair, and has a store of helium to match, then it is just not going to happen.”

“But,” said Reed, “what if we had a little extra lift?”

Rowena frowned at the sight of Jamyang and four shaven-headed monks tramping through the calf-deep snow towards them, each of the monks carrying a tube as tall and thick as himself. “Extra lift?”

*   *   *

“You do realize the chances are that they'll be picking pieces of us off these mountains until next Spring?” said Rowena. The
Skylady
had been cleared of snow and the gears oiled. The aerostat was powered by a powerful gear-engine, which Rowena had liberally smeared with yak oil to prevent the cogs freezing up again. The propellers at either side of the small gondola which held the cockpit and a tiny cargo hold had been picked clean of ice and the engine cranked to within an inch of its life, all by Rowena's hand as she eschewed help with almost everything, but especially where her beloved ‘stat was concerned. They were, to all intents and purposes, ready to fly, the monks from the lamasery poised at the mooring ropes anchored to stone blocks.

“It will work,” said Jamyang.

Rowena looked sidelong at the Tibetan sandwiched between her and Reed in the cramped cockpit. “You've done this before?”

He looked at her and blinked his heavy-lidded eyes. “No. Of course not.”

“Then how do you know it will work?”

Jamyang shrugged, the furs on his shoulders rising and falling. “Why would it not?”

She sighed. “Then let us go.”

Jamyang raised his hand in signal to the monks below and while four of them began to loosen the mooring ropes, another group bearing torches moved in at the four corners of the wooden frame around the dirigible's helium balloon and simultaneously touched the flames to long threads hanging from the bases of the tubes that had been fixed to the skeleton. As each one fizzed into life, Rowena bit her lip. This was madness. But the
Skylady
was free of her moorings and drifting slowly up in the thin air.

“What bearing, Jamyang?” she said.

He pointed to the north-east and Rowena released the shaft-brake, the propellers creaking into life and driving the ‘stat forward, away from the imposing sight of the Tashi Lhunpo monastery. She brought it around to fix on Jamyang's bearing, tapping the altimeter on the instrument panel. The mountain fell sharply away beneath them, but much higher peaks were rising up in the distance.

“We're already at five thousand feet,” she said. “Which is about as high as the
Skylady
goes. How long before we get your
extra lift
, Jamyang?”

He scrutinized the bleak, mountainous landscape in front of them, then glanced through the side-window at the slowly-burning fuse. “I anticipate it will happen just in time, Miss Fanshawe.”

*   *   *

Just in time couldn't come soon enough for Rowena Fanshawe. The Himalayas were a harsh, unforgiving landscape, and she couldn't conceive of Von Karloff and his crew trying to scale these peaks on foot. The mountains ahead of them had come progressively closer in the four hours they had been airborne, and the true scale of them was only now becoming apparent. They obliterated the sunlight, casting the whole valley beneath them in shadow, and Rowena tried to estimate their height using their current bearing and altitude. When she came up with a figure that was at least four times that of the
Skylady 's
maximum lift, she stopped trying to calculate it.

“How long until we hit the side of that mountain?” asked Reed.

“You're being awfully blasé about this,” she said through gritted teeth.

“That's because I have ultimate faith in Jamyang.”

Rowena didn't say
that's very good of you as you didn't even know him until last night
but instead made a swift estimation and said, “Perhaps twenty minutes, maybe half an hour if I kill the engines. Just enough time to turn around. But if we don't do it now…”

“No need,” said Jamyang, looking over her shoulder through the side window. “I think the fuses are about ready.”

“What exactly is in those tubes, Jamyang?”

“Gunpowder,” he just had time to say, then there were four sudden screaming noises, so close together as to form one unholy cacophony, and the
Skylady
suddenly lurched forwards and upwards, some invisible force pinning Rowena in the leather pilot's seat as the wall of the mountain—now so close she could make out cracks and crevices in the rock—flew past as though a cine film of the sort they showed on summer nights in Hyde Park played at the wrong speed. Rowena forced her head to move to the right and she cursed as she saw flames. But the ‘stat wasn't on fire—at least, not yet. The tubes the monks had screwed to the dirigible frame were spitting blue flames with such force that the
Skylady
was being forcibly thrown upwards. Suddenly they crested the top of the mountain into blue sky and brilliant sunshine flooded the cockpit. Within seconds of each other the tubes burned themselves out and quieted, and for a moment the
Skylady
hung in the air, as though the ‘stat itself could not believe the altitude it had achieved.

Rowena opened her mouth to speak but felt suddenly choked. Gasping for breath, she looked in alarm at Jamyang who nodded. “Thin air. Bring down. Now.”

“Down where?” she managed, following his outstretched arm. Then she gasped again, though from wonder rather than the thinness of the air. The mountain fell sharply away in front of them, a lost horizon hiding a secret marvel in the heart of the most inhospitable landscape on Earth.

Shangri-La.

Where the morning flight had been through the bitterest cold and most furious snow, Shangri-La seemed impervious to the Himalayan weather. It was a long valley, surrounded by the mountain range's high peaks, which were indeed capped with snow. Thick clouds hugged the summits of the mountains, but they parted and dissipated overhead, allowing the unfiltered sunlight to flood the valley. And where all Rowena had seen since her arrival was rock and snow and scrubland, Shangri-La was a verdant paradise of meadows ablaze with colour, patchwork fields given over to swaying crops, blue pools and white foaming rivers. Orchards of trees groaned with fruit and herds of deer grazed the lowlands near the bank of the river, which began high out of sight in the mountains and disappeared into an underground channel. And in the middle of the valley were clustered simple houses, built around a large structure that must have been the administrative centre of the community.

“By God, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes,” breathed Reed as the
Skylady
began to descend towards the valley.

“Are you a noble man?” Jamyang asked quietly.

Reed placed his gloved hand over his heart. “A man is only as noble as others see him to be.”

Jamyang nodded, apparently satisfied, though to Rowena this seemed a typically opaque answer. The Tibetan said, “Only a handful of men alive today know of Shangri-La. I have placed a great burden on your soul by showing it to you. I hope you are to be trusted with it.”

“It's miraculous,” Reed breathed. “It's impossible.”

“It's in trouble,” said Rowena, pointing down the valley. Thin columns of smoke rose from the village, and tiny figures scurried between the burning dwellings.

“Von Karloff!” Reed hissed. “The villain has beaten us here!”

“But only just,” said Jamyang.

Shedding his animal skins in the suddenly balmy atmosphere, John Reed reached for his pack behind the seats and withdrew his rifle, then checked the knives strapped to his thighs and boots. “Then let us show him that paradise is not his for the taking.”

*   *   *

Rowena nosed towards the village, peering through the rapidly-melting ice on the windshield towards the burning houses around the larger, temple-like structure. “How can an entire village, so cut off from the world, be populated only by women?” she said. “How do they survive, continue their lineage?”

Jamyang said, “They do not need to. Those who spend time in the valley say time moves differently here. Some of those who dwell here have done so for many years … centuries, even.
And they grow old at a snail's pace!
”

“Great Scott! It is no wonder they live in secrecy!” said Reed, slamming ammunition into his rifle.

“They may be almost immortal, but they are still human,” said Jamyang. “They say the women of Shangri-La will welcome to their arms only men who are strong and resourceful enough to breach the valley's defences … thus the purity of their race is assured. And they only ever give birth to girl children.”

“A kind of natural selection, as old Darwin has bent my ear about on more than one occasion,” said Reed.

“Perhaps they will expect you to help further their race, given you are the vaunted Hero of the Empire,” said Rowena with a small smile.

Reed shot her a look, but there was no time for a riposte, because they were now at the outskirts of the village, and the sight sickened Rowena to her stomach. There were half a dozen men, rampaging through the village, dragging the women from their huts and ravishing them there on the ground. At the midst of it all stood the arrogant Prussian himself, hands on his hips. To one side was Professor Halifax, slumped by a well, his head in his hands.

“At least the Professor seems to be an unwilling conscript to this hellishness,” said Reed. He turned and opened the side windshield, letting in the fragrant, warm air, and leaned out, taking aim with his rifle. His first shot hit one of Von Karloff's men square in the forehead as he tore like an animal at the simple dress of a young woman.

“Can you handle a gun?” said Rowena to Jamyang.

“I have devoted my life to non-violence,” he said.

“Then take the wheel,” she said. “Keep it tight to starboard and we'll describe a tight circle over the village.”

Rowena opened her window and took up her pistol, taking careful aim and bringing down another of Von Karloff's men, as Reed found another target. Von Karloff's men were in disarray, looking wildly up at the
Skylady
, and the Prussian frowned and called his men to rally, pointing down to the river bank and the shelter of a copse of trees. Von Karloff tugged at Professor Halifax's shoulder, but Rowena fired again, narrowly missing the Prussian's outstretched hand. Von Karloff recoiled as though burned, and fled with his men, leaving Halifax where he slumped, as Reed and Rowena emptied their guns into the escaping villains.

*   *   *

When she decided to follow in her father's rapidly fading footsteps and become a 'stat pilot, Rowena knew she was handicapped from the very start. Very few women became pilots. When she turned up at the Union Hall of the Esteemed Brethren of International Airshipmen and said she wanted to sign up they laughed at her and told her to go home and find a husband.

But Rowena persevered. She could already fly—did she not have her father's blood coursing in her veins?—but that wasn't enough. She had not just to match the men at their own game, she had to beat them. So she learned to handle a gun, taught herself to hold her liquor, and realised that to be a true 'stat pilot she had to leave the conventions of polite society on the ground.